Sundown - Der Rückzug der Vampire

First off I am little biased about this movie. Anything Bruce Campbell touches is immediately awesome. Second off, Anthony Hickox is one of the most underrated director's of eighties and early nineties horror. Waxwork I and II and Warlock II are great as well as his made-for-television Full Eclipse. I don't understand what happened to him. What's up with all the Dolph Lundgren movies? You are already an established horror director, so why change genres? I'm getting sidetracked. Sundown is for the light-hearted horror fan who enjoys a bit of comedy with their severed heads. And it is funny. Bruce Campbell is great, Maxwell Caulfield is always good, and David Carridine gives a good performance as the vampire leader. Also look for a beardless Buck Flower. The makeup and effects are pretty good. I don't think I've seen better fang effects in a movie. The western elements go great with the vampire theme. It's a nice mix of genres.

Bruce (Evil Dead) Campbell and David (Kung Fu) Carradine headline this 1989 109 minute comedy horror which crosses over into the Western genre too. I found this film a nice surprise and entertaining to boot. A town of Vampires headed up by 'the Count' himself (played by Carradine) are looking to co-exist with humans in what feels like a retirement village set in a John Ford-esque Wild West town. Unfortunately Jefferson (John Ireland) has different ideas and feels that his species shouldn't have to co-exist in harmony, why wear factor 1000 sunblock and drink synthetic blood when living humans are a plentiful source of food. As it happens to synthetic supply is in danger and the only way to fix the situation is a living human scientist with the relevant skills so it's through his family's eyes that we tend to follow the action and story. Throw in Bruce Campbell as a bumbling idiotic modern Van Helsing and you have some great ingredients for making a film that it's stuck in the horror genre alone. Laughs a plenty with a cute story and some fun events make this a great if slightly camp way of enjoying 109 minutes, to me this is more entertaining than watching "True Blood" which also features vampires and synthetic blood because it really doesn't take itself too seriously :P 7 out of 10 from me on this.

This was a pleasant surprise - a charming vampire western that respects the genres (Western fans will love the classic John Ford-esque setting and epic soundtrack!) while maintaining both an action plotline and likeable, understandable characters. Bruce Campbell is hilarious as an over-the-top Van Helsing descendant (who goes thru a most unexpected change!), John Ireland is impressive as the rebel vampire leader and David Carradine is strong and dignified as the Count who keeps an ancient secret identity. Lots of human warmth and sympathy (Carradine's townful of Western vampires, drinking a synthetic blood substitute, yearns to be free of human predation and to someday live on equal terms with mankind) distinguishes this from many other modern vampire flicks; the Count's reaction upon feeling forgiven by God is genuinely moving. Even your non-horror-fan friends will like this one.

Sundown is pretty good for what it is. What is it? A low budget western/horror/action/comedy flick with plenty of original ideas, a great cast and its tongue is firmly planted in its cheek. David Carradine is Mardulak, he owns a town in the American southwest called Purgatory. Purgatory is a sanctuary of sorts for vampires that wish to live out eternity in peace. Mardulak is also funding a blood substitute so vampires will no longer feed on humans for blood. Of course there are some that are not on the same page and do not see humans as their equals, just lunch. John Ireland is great opposite of Carradine as villain in this. Plus M. Emmet Walsh, Bruce Campbell, George "Buck" Flower and Emmet from Road House appear. Sundown The Vampire In Retreat is fine campy entertainment that does not take itself so seriously. But, by doing so it succeeds on its own merits. It puts a nice and unique spin on the vampire mythos and is a hilarious and fun film. This film may be a little cheesy, but performances are good and this project is ripe with fresh ideas. Sundown The Vampire In Retreat certainly delivers the goods for campy entertainment.

There are plenty of reasons why this movie could had been a real fun one and a bit of a cult-classic even. It has the right premise and settings, as well as the right cast for it. I mean, David Carradine as Dracula and Bruce Campbell as Van Helsing, set in a small rural town in 'modern' day America, how could things go wrong? The answer is very simple unfortunately; the script.

It's really disappointing how incredibly lame and poorly the story got written. The right ideas were there it seemed but yet they didn't really had an idea how to use them. The story feels like it's all constant buildup, without ever a decent pay off. It's such an uninteresting done story, in which all of the characters also don't work out at all. All of the characters motivations remain unclear to me really. I had no idea what Dracula wanted or what Van Helsing was trying to achieve and why the Harrison's are the centerpiece of the movie remains also quite unclear. It all still starts of promising enough but the movie starts to run out of steam pretty fast and there is far too little good, original or interesting happening in the story.

The comedy of the movie is typically '80's like, even though it's an 1990 movie (though some sources say it's an 1989 movie). This means that the comedy is quite simplistic and childish really, which more often makes the movie lame than funny really. And that for me was the movie its downfall. I mean I could had so easily forgiven the movie for all of its weaknesses, if only the movie was a more fun and funny one to watch.

I love vampires and all, as long as they don't sparkle but there for me was very little to enjoy in this movie. The movie might just as well had been one about zombies, or nuclear affected freaks and the movie would had been all the same really. Not even David Carradine could impress me much as count Dracula. There is simply very little typical vampire stuff going on in this movie and most of the well known actors also get heavily underused. I still thought it was great that David Carradine played the famous count. A role that his father John Carradine had played more than a few times during his career, also in a couple of official Universal studio movies and who had died just a few years prior to this movie. As far as I know if this was the only time David Carradine played the blood sucking count. Perhaps he did it as an homage to his, at the time, recently deceased father.

There is a very good reason why this movie isn't known any better really; it's very forgettable.

5/10

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